Mid-Fall Fun

Anthony's folks and Tita Evelyn came up for a week, mainly for Anthony's one-man show at the local community college.  Opening night was a huge success!

Here's the proud daughter:

a tired, but also proud aunt:

                                              and an interested father reading about his son:

So many of our friends came out.  A great night indeed.

                                                      Bea stayed close by during the Q&A:

                                      Annalena and her family were in town for pumpkin carving!

I guess Bea was heavily influenced this year by the recent activity in her mouth!

Here's the lineup!

One great thing we did while Lolo and Lola were here was make homemade dumplings.  Bea's been wanting to do that for a long time, and they were yummy!

Finally, in preparation for her St. Kateri Tekakwitha project in a few weeks, Bea got this costume online.  I think we're already done with Halloween shopping for 2016!

Unbeknownst to us, Lolo and Lola brought a St. Kateri rosary bead and medals up to CT, and this little girl is the proud owner of them now!

(on a side note, that medal lit up the vibrating beeper at the 99 restaurant last week to get us a quick seat the moment it touched it.  Bea wondered if we'd witnessed a miracle??)

A Perfect Weekend

October has been particularly gorgeous this year and the sunshine was abundant this past 3-day weekend.  On Saturday afternoon I kicked my inside-loving daughter out to soak up some vitamin D.  The hula hoop ended up outside too and she had discovered that she can really truly keep that thing twirling now! I ran inside to get the camera to document the momentous milestone:

It's an exhausting workout!

Then I decided since the light was so gorgeous I'd try to get some good photos of this almost 7.5 year old:

I'm not sure who this 20-year old is sitting in my tree  :(

On Sunday afternoon, the Chazanoffs came over.  The girls made great use of their time. They pulled out the treasure chest of dress-up clothes and created a "play" for the audience.  They played with dolls, legos, instruments, marbles, and anything else the could get their hands on before we declared it "clean up time" and then settled in for a 9:00 showing of Cinderella. They were up way too  late and then shortly after, way too early to start in again Monday morning! After more playing inside, we kicked everybody out for more sunshine!  They had a blast with sidewalk chalk,

(this nearly-3-year old was a joy to have around!)

created a "driveway spa,"

(gotta let that "henna" aka chalk dry),

discovered "gems,"

and chased some bubbles:

Next they headed to the "treehouse" and decided to do some renovations,

including new flooring,

some floral touches on the ceiling,

and a fresh coat of "paint."

Lots of creative fun was had, and it always warms my heart to get these "sisters" together.

Peace is..

The month is flying by and the days are filled with routines that go along with school and work- preparing lunches/snack, laundry, spelling lists and the torture that ensues from them, getting clothes ready for the next day, signing daily communication logs, etc. Honestly the three of us have all been asleep before 9:00 almost every night since school started.  The weekends are filled with lots of fun things here and there, and catching up on all the mundane to-dos that don't get done during the week.  The late summer weather has been ridiculously beautiful.  I haven't taken out the camera too often, but I did snap these the other day when this colorful girl who dressed herself came outside to help me hang clothes:

yup, Atticus went into the basket all on his own, and Beatrice thought it was just great.

Then she squatted and I saw this beautiful young lady right before my eyes:

Where have I seen her before, I wondered?

Could be up in the Sapa Valley from the hills of northern Vietnam?  She reminded me so much of the many photos I've seen of children from that area, so beautiful, so happy, dressed so colorfully.  She and the girl in the middle of this photo are kindred spirits!

One of the fun things we did last weekend was attend the dojo picnic and one of the members' homes.  On the way home, we noticed a police officer directing traffic and lots of attention at this convenience store, because the little ice cream shop inside, THE ICE CREAM LADY, was giving free ice cream on its last day open for the season. Apparently it's been an annual tradition for over a dozen years and we took part in it.  We were shocked because it wasn't just a free kiddie scoop of one or two kinds, but literally the entire ice cream menu, including $7 banana splits or brownie sundaes were free....whatever people wanted, any size, as many toppings as you'd like.  And not just to get people to go there and spend more money because there was nothing else to buy.  Anthony proclaimed it "the best day of his life" and it just had to be documented:

Last night was Putnam's Peace Day celebration at sunset and Beatrice kicked off the event with a poem she wrote about peace.  She did a bang-up job and unfortunately this photo is all we got of it.  The video didn't come out!

She loves being a helper, and Bea was the official greeter and hander-outer of these battery-operated candles:

A beautiful night indeed.  We hope that these events about social justice and exposure to awesome people who stand up and speak out about causes dear to their heart lead to a lifetime of involvement and activism:

Since the video didn't come out, I had her reread her poem once we got home.  It took three tries and she kept adding things at the end, but here's the best one I got:

WHAT IS PEACE?

PEACE is.....having fun.

PEACE is...........friends. 

PEACE is...letting people use your stuff.

PEACE is.................a wedding.

PEACE is......being nice to every living thing.

PEACE is.....knowing and loving everyone.

PEACE is.................JOY!

and here's the Princess who got her face painted at the Circle of Fun this weekend, looking oh so very much a big kid with that new smile that I just can't get used to!